Things that go BOOM!

I always joke that my favorite movies are ones where things blow up. The more bullets spent and explosions there are the better the movie in my book. In reality, what I’m trying to say is I enjoy action packed movies. Making me watch a slow drama is equivalent to shoving bamboo shoots under my finger nails.

I didn’t realize how violent my movie tendencies were until I logged onto Netflix the other day. One of the things I like about Netflix is it will tell you that since you liked X movie, we think you might also enjoy Y movie. It will also create entire categories of movies it thinks you will like. Imagine my surprise when I go to check my queue one day and Netflix informs me it has created a “Violent Thrillers” category based on my taste in movies. Seriously, violent thrillers.

At first my thought was, this can’t be right, where did Netflix get this idea? And then I started scrolling through the movies under that category – yup, all movies I’d seen and really enjoyed. All movies with lots of bullets and explosions. Movies like American Gangster, Kill Bill and Wanted. Who knew I had such violent tendencies?

To be fair, I should have seen this coming. I’m the only girl I know who can keep up with the boys in discussing James Bond films. This morning in fact we were arguing over how many times Pierce Brosnan had played 007 (4) and which film had the character Solitaire (To Live and Let Die). I was right on both accounts. Now James Bond films aren’t the most violent movies on earth, but let’s be honest, the guy has no qualms about killing people when necessary.

What does it say about a person, when their most watched moves tend to be of a violent nature? Now I don’t know for sure, but I’m willing to bet that if I ever went off the deep end and started shooting up my office, one of things people would say was “well, she did prefer violent movies.” I’m also willing to bet that if I ever get married people wouldn’t think to say “she was a big fan of the romantic comedies,” which I am also a fan of. Hey, I may like explosions, but I’m still a girl.

Really I think it means I have a very short attention span. Movies where things blow up are loud and tend to keep you from falling asleep or diverting you attention. The same cannot be said for quiet movies that take place in the English country side where girls prance around the garden and drink tea for fun.

So thank you Netflix, for creating a category just for me. Although I’d prefer it didn’t use the term violent to describe my movie preferences, I’d be way more upset it the categories “Animation for Grownups” (a real thing!), “tearjerkers” or “super swashbucklers” had come up instead. After looking through the list of genera’s available, suddenly violent thrillers no longer seems so bad. Bring on the BOOMs!